Two More Names On The Wall Of Honor

May 22, 2009|By JOSH KOVNER, jkovner@courant.com

Karen Cotner doesn't cry for her son, Christian, a Marine corporal from Waterbury killed in Iraq in 2008.

"I cry for me, for my husband, for Christian's friends, and for the people who never got a chance to know him," she told an audience at the Legislative Office Building on Thursday on the eve of Memorial Day weekend.

The name and photograph of her son, and those of Army First Lt. Thomas J. Brown, who grew up in Shelton and was killed in action in Iraq in September 2008, were added to the Wall of Honor.

The memorial, in the concourse of the Legislative Office Building, bears the names and images of the 43 men and women with Connecticut ties who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002.

Family members of Cotner, 21, Brown, and several other Connecticut servicemen who died in the war zones remembered young, vibrant sons who gave their lives for this country.

Brown, 26, knew as a child that he wanted to serve in the military, and his godfather and uncle said his family was extremely proud of his commitment.

"When the call came to stand up for us, they did not flinch," Carl Christensen, Cotner's grandfather, said of all the service members memorialized on the wall. Without hesitation, they moved forward, into the line of fire, and laid down their lives for their friends.

"They are gone from our sight, from our homes, but not from our memories or our hearts," Christensen said.

Jean Marino described her son, Navy SEAL Petty Officer Jason Lewis of Brookfield, as an athlete and a consummate family man.

"He packed a lot of life into his 30 years and 60 days," Marino said as Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Comptroller Nancy Wyman, who had the idea for the memorial, and other dignitaries sat behind her.

Lewis, father of two young sons and a daughter, was killed by a makeshift bomb in Baghdad in the summer of 2007.

Karen Cotner told the story of a son who could talk to anyone and who could melt your heart.

"It diminishes us all," she said, lifting her tear-streaked face to the audience, "to have lost these wonderful young people."